


Fic: A night in Cardiff

by Selana



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Torchwood
Genre: Action, Crossover, Gen, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-12
Updated: 2011-06-12
Packaged: 2017-10-20 09:01:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/211035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selana/pseuds/Selana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Buffy S7, I never read more than one or two of the comics... Xander comes to Cardiff to get a break from the Slayers and the Council, but of course he can't just have a quiet vacation, as even in Cardiff things go bump in the night</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fic: A night in Cardiff

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to my beta kelticbanshee . All remaining mistakes are mine, English is not my native language so if you find anything I should change, please point it out to me.

Xander was fighting for his life in a dark, small alley in Cardiff. He was on vacation and had just wanted to spend a nice evening out, when this ugly demon attacked him. This thing was really strong and its sharp teeth and claws didn’t make the fight any easier for Xander. His arms were already bleeding from a few minor cuts, where he had blocked attacks from his vicious opponent. He moved fast, his fighting skills trained in Sunnydale and only improved during the time he spent in Africa, but the demon was faster, stronger. Xander knew he was going to lose the fight if he didn’t find a weapon soon, but he would not give up. If he was going to die here, he would go out in a fight.

“I’m. Not. Going. To. Die. On. My. Vacation!” He ducked and blocked attacks with every word and managed to land a few blows of his own – unfortunately they didn’t seem to have much effect. Why on earth had he thought that it was safe to go out without a weapon at night? Even while he was on vacation? There he was now, in a dark, narrow alley near Cardiff Bay, fighting an ugly demon who was wearing a boiler suit. And what was that logo on the suit? No time to think about it now, he needed to concentrate on the fight if he wanted to live.

By now, he was out of breath and was frantically searching his surroundings for something to use as a weapon. Not an easy task with one eye, as he still had to avoid the attacking demon. He couldn’t find anything useful and it was just his luck that he’d ended up in a dead end. The only way out was blocked by the demon, so he couldn’t do anything but keep fighting.

Xander was rapidly tiring, it got harder and harder for him to avoid the vicious attacks. Great, for once he wanted to have a nice and quiet vacation and now he was going to die here. He had survived more than one apocalypse, lived on a hellmouth for years and now he was going to die in Cardiff? He planned to make one last, desperate attack to try and get around the beast. He needed to get out of this street if he wanted to live.

Xander moved back and to the left a little, hoping that the monster would follow him and give him some room to move around it. But it was fast, too fast and Xander’s back hit the wall. The demon was way too close now, a clawed hand hit Xander’s shoulder and he looked into a mouth full of sharp teeth.

Suddenly there was a kind of bang and the demon dropped motionless to the ground. Xander looked cautiously down at the beast, but it didn’t move at all. Not convinced, he kicked at its arm, but it still didn’t move, didn’t even twitch. Only when he was sure he was out of danger, he looked up again to find out what had stopped his attacker. He saw a man in a grey greatcoat walking towards him who was just putting away a strange looking gun. The stranger shot him a wide smile.

“Good fight, not many people would survive a Weevil attack with just a few scratches. I’m Captain Jack Harkness from Torchwood.” He was now standing right in front of Xander and extended his hand.

Xander’s body reacted without conscious thought and he took the offered hand before he started to talk. “Xander Harris. So, what kind of demon is a Weevil? I’ve never seen anything like it before, and believe me I’ve seen more than enough things that go bump in the night. And what is Torchwood? This gun looked like straight out of a sci-fi movie, can I have a look at that?” Xander might have gone on like this for a while, but Jack interrupted him.

“Let’s get Janet here back into her cell before she wakes up. I’ll answer your questions later, okay?”

Xander took a deep breath and forced himself to nod. “Fine, I really don’t want another fight with this thing tonight.” A million questions were going through his mind, but he kept them for later.

Together they carried the Weevil to a black SUV and packed her in the boot. Jack then drove them to an underground car park where they heaved the Weevil out of the car. It was a lot of work to carry it through a long corridor with several doors – turn left, then right, left again – to an area with several cells. Xander was memorizing the way, just in case he had to run out of here. This didn’t feel right, to carry a demon to a cell, what would happen to it there? But he kept his thoughts to himself for now.

Xander’s mind was on overdrive, he tried to make sense out of what he had seen here. The underground base with lots of cells and a secret entrance left him with an uneasy feeling. This didn’t look at all like the Initiative, but why did this guy lock up demons? Was he planning something? And who had built this base? Parts of it looked really old, but there was a lot of technology as well. It just didn’t make any sense.

Finally, they had the Weevil locked up and Xander stretched his tired muscles and groaned, he was aching all over from the fight. “Shit, this was my favourite shirt.” He muttered, looking at the shredded, blood soaked mess he was wearing. It has once been a really soft, black button down shirt, but now it was only held together by a few threads, more holes than anything else – definitely a lost cause.

“Why don’t you get cleaned up, I’m sure I can find a clean shirt for you. People might look strange if you’d run around half naked.” Jack grinned at him and winked. He pointed to a door at the end of the corridor. “Bathroom is in there, first aid kit is under the sink.”

Xander entered the surprisingly nice and big bathroom. With a sigh he unbuttoned what was left of his shirt and dropped it with a look of regret in the dust bin. He really liked that shirt, but there was no chance of repairing it.

None of the scratches on his arms looked too bad, so he just washed the blood away, applied some antibiotic cream he had found in the really well stocked first aid kit and covered the worst ones with band aids. One ruined shirt was enough for one day, he didn’t really want to bleed through another one.

The adrenaline was leaving his body by now and he realized for the first time that his shoulder hurt where the Weevil had landed his last blow. Xander turned his back to the mirror to get a better look and discovered a rather deep cut. He tried as best as he could to clean it, but couldn’t quite reach. Just then Jack returned with a clean, grey shirt.

“Let me help you with your shoulder.” Jack said, after looking up and down Xander’s half naked body. Xander really needed the help. So he decided to ignore the blatant flirting for now and pretended not to notice that Jack’s hands lingered for longer on his body than necessary to clean and dress the wound.

“I don’t think you’ll need stitches, but be careful for the next few days.” Jack stood still way too close behind Xander, one hand resting on his uninjured shoulder.

Xander took a step forward before turning around to put some distance between them.

“Thanks. And would you please stop with the flirting now, I’m not interested.” He grabbed the shirt and carefully put it on. He didn’t want to open the wound on his shoulder again, but he stilled tried to get dressed as fast as possible. Jack’s undisguised looks made him feel uneasy. “Oh, and you still owe me some answers, so why don’t you start talking while I get dressed?”

Jack stepped back with an apologetic smile. “Can’t blame me for trying.” He turned to the door and glanced back over his shoulder. “Why don’t we go to the pub and talk over a beer, I could do with a drink.”

“A beer sounds perfect right now, but less flirting and more answers please.” Xander finished buttoning his shirt. Jack led the way out of the underground complex and to a nearby pub. They didn’t talk on the way, but it was a rather comfortable silence. Xander had grown up a lot and didn’t feel the need to talk all the time any more – even if he had proven earlier that the patented Xander babble wasn’t gone completely.

It was a week day and already late, so Xander had no problems to find a table while Jack bought their drinks. He looked up just in time to see Jack slipping something into one of the glasses. Poison? A drug? Xander decided to be even more careful around this man than he already was. He didn’t want to die here, not from a demon attack and definitely not after he survived said attack.

Jack sat down, placed a glass in front of Xander and drank from his own. “I know you have a lot of questions, but I’ve got a few of my own. If you want me to tell you my secrets, I’d like to hear yours. Deal?” Jack looked at Xander with an expectant smile.

“Deal, but you start. So, what exactly is Torchwood? Some kind of secret organisation?” Xander leant back in his chair and toyed with his glass, but didn’t drink. He wasn’t ready to give away just yet that he knew about whatever it was that Jack had spiked his drink with.

Jack started to explain about Torchwood and Weevils and the Rift and aliens, answering all of Xander’s questions without hesitation. He seemed a bit surprised that Xander took it all in stride, seemed to believe him. When he was done, his glass was empty. He looked quizzically at Xander’s still untouched beer. “You not thirsty? The beer is really good here.”

“Oh, I’m thirsty, but I’d prefer a drink without whatever it is you spiked this one with. I might just have one eye, but I’m not blind.” Xander smiled, got up and bought two more pints. He had to convince Jack that the he could be trusted with all the information he just got, but how? By the time he was back at the table, he had something like a plan.

Xander placed one beer in front of Jack, aware that he had been observed when buying them. “So, what is it you put into my glass?” He shot Jack an expectant look over his glass, draining almost half of it in one go.

Jack seemed surprised again, then grinned. “You really are something special, Xander. Not many people would have caught me, and of those, most would have tried to get away from me as fast as possible. They certainly wouldn’t have bought me a drink.” He seemed genuinely amused now. “It’s called retcon and would have made you forget all about the Weevil and what I’ve told you, We can’t have too many people running around who know about it.”

Xander raised an eyebrow. “Right, and they wouldn’t put me in one of the jackets with the long arms and buckles on the back if I started to talk about it. Believe me, I know when to keep my mouth shut, or I’d have ended up in a straight jacket years ago.” He took another sip of his beer. “I told you before, I encountered quite a few things that go bump in the night, even if we called them demons, not aliens. They might be the same, or probably not, I don’t know and it doesn’t really matter. I just know that they are out there and that people need to be protected from them. We basically do the same thing, we try to keep the general population out of harm’s way, try to make them believe they are safe and there are no strange things going on.” He took a deep breath. “You’ll have to trust me on this, I really can’t tell you anything else, they are not my secrets to tell.”

Jack had listened without interrupting him. “Is that how you lost your eye? Fighting demons or whatever they were?” He sounded curious, intrigued.

“Yes, someone was stronger, faster… and without the help of friends, I might have ended up dead or lost both eyes.” He shuddered at the memory of Caleb, of his thumb pushing, pressing, the pain shooting through his head.

“So, what are you doing in Cardiff? Chasing more demons?” Jack felt Xander’s unease and tried to change the subject of their conversation.

Xander gave a short laugh. “Not really, just wanted to have a bit of a vacation, get away from everything. Went out to have a drink or two, then I heard a strange noise in this alley. And even if I hadn’t anything on me that could be used as a weapon, I just had to check it out. Never claimed not to act stupid.” He grinned. “But lucky me, you came to my rescue.”

Jack couldn’t help but grin back. “Seems to be your lucky day. Survived a Weevil attack and I’ll let you go home to brag about it.” He winked.

“Oh yeah, I can claim that I survived another demon attack and defeated the beast all on my own… no need to tell anyone about you coming to save my ass.” Xander grinned back.

They drank the last of their beer and chatted about everything and nothing, then Jack stood up and pushed the still untouched glass with retcon from the table. He acted as if it had happened by accident and apologised to the waitress, giving her a thousand watt smile.

Before they parted, Jack handed Xander a phone number. “Just in case you encounter something else while you stay here. Don’t take it on alone, call us. And try not to get killed during your vacation.”

Xander took it with a grin. “Thanks, I’ll try to stay out of trouble for the next few days. Good bye, Jack.” Then he turned and walked back to his hotel without looking back.


End file.
